This will be one for the emergency preparedness and emergency responder textbooks.

Update 4:37pm Eastern. Passenger Jeff Kolodjay spoke with media. They smelled gas before crash. Explosion took place. Pilot told them to brace. A mom and baby were among survivors. “Everyone prayed.”

Kolodjay was soaked. Mobbed by reporters. Took forever for someone to offer him a coat.

***

The scenes bring me back to January 13, 1982. Will never forget the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the Potomac. Remember Lenny Skutnik? Thank God, today turned out better.

It happens sometimes: Lenny Skutnik will be watching television at home in Lorton, and suddenly, there he is on the screen — years younger — a bystander leaping into the icy Potomac River to rescue a survivor of the 1982 Air Florida crash. He is still embarrassed when people call him a hero for doing that.

“I wasn’t a hero,” he said. “I was just someone who helped another human being. We’re surrounded by heroes. What made this different was that it was caught on film and went all over the world.”

That day — Jan. 13, 1982 — was a tragic one in the Washington area. As a blinding snowstorm gripped the region, Air Florida Flight 90 clipped the 14th Street bridge on takeoff and plunged into the river, killing 74 passengers and four people on the bridge.

Amid the chaos and sadness, several acts of bravery stood out: a helicopter pilot who plucked survivors from the freezing river; a medic who climbed out to grab a victim too weak to help herself; two bystanders who could no longer bear to watch helplessly from the sidelines. One of the injured passengers, later identified as Arland Williams Jr. of Atlanta, drowned after passing the lifeline repeatedly to others.

They saved five people.

“Thanks to the people who got me out that day, I’ve lived another 25 years,” said Joseph Stiley, 67, a retired engineer living in Montana. “I got to see my children grow up, my grandchildren. I even have a great-grandson.”

It could be argued that the Air Florida crash ushered in an era of instantaneous you-are-there news coverage. Local television crews recorded nearly every moment of the rescue. Almost immediately, the chilling images went worldwide, to be repeated for years to come.